Ron Bowes Defends His Decision To Publish 100 million Facebook Users Details
The man responsible for the publication of of personal details from over 100 million Facebook users has spoken out to explain his actions.
Ron Bowes scanned Facebook profiles using a piece of code and collected data that was made public by each user.
The list has been compiled into one downloadable file and uploaded to major file-sharing sites including the Pirate Bay.
“I’m a developer for the Nmap Security Scanner and one of our recent tools is called Ncrack,” he told BBC News.
“It is designed to test password policies of organisations by using brute force attacks; in other words, guessing every username and password combination.”
Mr Bowes combined each users first initial and surname to compile a list of the most commonly used usernames on the social networking website.
Bowes could – in theory – use this information in conjunction with a dictionary of the most common passwords to test the security of websites. Similar techniques are used by cyber criminals to gain access to more sensitive information.
Critics argue that Bowws’ actions are irresponsible, but he countered that by saying: “All I’ve done is compile public information into a nice format for statistical analysis.”
A Facebook statement confirmed that all of the information in the list was already publicly available and that “No private data is available or has been compromised.”
Posted by Daniel Heaton
on Jul 29 2010. Filed under Latest News, Technology.
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